I'm Sorry
by Terapsina
Summary: Skye chases after a HYDRA agent and has her world shatter beneath her feet as she catches her.


Disclaimer: Not mine. I certainly wouldn't have made Jemma _possibly_ HYDRA. No, no there's other people that need to be blamed for that.

AN: This is an Anonymous Tumblr prompt which goes as follows: Skye meets "Hydra" Simmons. "Manscaping".

*o0o*  
>*<strong> I'm Sorry<strong> *  
>*o0o*<p>

They're tracking a HYDRA cell through the dank wet tunnels after a failed attempt to stop them from stealing another 084 artifact. Skye wishes she had some backup, but the team had needed to split up after their targets did the same.

In the darkness, illuminated only by a dim flashlight, her every step echoes loudly back at her, awareness of the possibility that she's already given away her position to the faceless HYDRA agent lurks in her thoughts, along with the certainty that if so the enemy will be waiting with a gun behind one of the corners.

But she swallows the fear and replays in her mind every lesson May has given to her in the recent months.

Something crashes with a splash behind her and she swings around, already ducking from a bullet that doesn't come. Instead of attacking, the other person uses Skye's distraction to run and Skye curses before following.

"Stop." Skye screams, not actually expecting the runner to listen, but her voice seems to have startled them because for a moment they stumble and Skye uses her momentum to push the enemy agent into the stone wall. There's a pained grunt and something cold drops in Skye's stomach, the sound is familiar.

But that's not possible.

Suddenly more violently than she herself expects Skye grabs the other woman's - she can tell that much at least now - shoulder and swings her around to face her.

And her world breaks once again.

"Jemma?"

She feels it like like a punch to her gut. Not again. Not this. Not her. _Please_, not her.

"Oh god." Skye stumbles back, ignoring every instinct Melinda has been trying to imprint on her, Skye doesn't even point her weapon, letting it hang limp in her hand.

For a moment they stare at each other. Skye trying to make sense of the presence of someone she thought she knew. Again.

Her hair is shorter. Edgier. But it's her. It's Jemma. The HYDRA agent she's been chasing after for the past ten minutes is _Jemma_.

She wants to vomit.

No, what she wants is to understand. How could she do this? After Ward? After _Fitz_? Oh god, Fitz. She's going to have to tell Fitz. It's going to destroy him.

Like it's destroying Skye right now.

"I can't believe this. I can't… I can't…" she lets herself have a moment, just one moment, Skye lets her face show the agony of this new discovery, lets Jemma see exactly what she's done to her with this betrayal, lets out the burning in her heart in one single sob. And then she steels herself, she'll shatter later. She'll deal with what this means later.

Skye gasps a deep breath and grips the gun in her hands before bringing it back up and pointing it at Simmons' torso. She doesn't let herself flinch.

"You're coming with me now."

Simmons puts up her arms. Still silent. Skye wants her to say something, she wants to shake her and scream and get an answer. How long? How long has Simmons been a HYDRA mole? Since the beginning? Was she just like Ward? Was everything a lie?

But Jem- Simmons' face is stone. And her voice once it finally comes contradicts her words with its distance.

"I'm sorry."

There is a blue flash, her eardrums pop and when Skye opens her eyes again one of Melinda's hands are on her neck, checking her pulse, while the other is warm on her cheek.

And then, then she does break. Great sobs claw their way out of her chest and all she can do is cry and cling to May. She can trust May. If there's one person she knows she can keep her faith in, it's her. But it doesn't take away from the hurt. Because she thought she could trust Jemma too and now Jemma really is gone, much further than Skye thought just yesterday. Now she's not sure if the cute, awkward British woman who excelled in microbiology but utterly failed at flirting was _ever_ real; was ever Skye's friend; was ever Skye's… something.

—

From a building across the street and through some binoculars Jemma observes as Agent May walks out with Skye.

Skye seems outwardly fine, to an unobservant person she would look to be perfectly calm, but Simmons is not an unobservant person and she knows Skye well enough to see the mask for what it is.

Guilt gnaws at her. She wishes she could turn back time and make a different choice, but time travel is almost as scientifically improbable as true psychics.

Her mobile chimes in her pocket and she hurriedly brings it out.

'You're only supposed to contact me in case of extreme emergency.'

"I know, but sir-"

'We must identify the inner circle of HYDRA, that is our only chance at winning this war, and you are our only way of doing that.'

"But Skye-"

'Skye will understand.'

Jemma looks down at the rigid shoulders of the woman they're talking about and thinks back on the agonized face Jemma was confronted with in those tunnels.

Skye might come to understand. Some day. But will she ever forgive her?

Will Jemma ever forgive herself?

"Yes, sir."

Jemma ends the call before Coulson can and tries not to think about the future. But not thinking about that, forces her to think about something else. _"I'm sorry." _Jemma hears her own voice repeating that short sentence as some kind of a cruel mantra inside her mind, mocking her for the choice she made not twenty minutes ago. She had been biting her tongue so hard, trying not to say the word on the very tip of it. Trying not to reveal the game.

And now Skye thinks she has betrayed her. Betrayed all of them. And she knows that as soon as Skye fully absorbs that, as soon as the shock wears off, she will start to hate her.

It's more than likely that when they next meet Skye will be trying to kill her,

And the worst part is that Jemma knows that with one word she could have prevented that. All she would have needed to do was utter their safeword and Skye's faith in her would have remained intact. But Jemma hadn't been able to risk it. She couldn't risk Skye knowing.

Because if Skye knew, she'd inevitably try to help. And that would put her in just as much danger as Jemma.

And Jemma couldn't live with herself if anything were to happen to Skye, especially if it was because she hadn't been able to follow the very basics of deep cover protocol.

She looks down on the street. Skye is standing with her back to her and Jemma can't help it this time. Here where it won't do any harm. Where Skye won't hear, but Jemma will, she whispers.

"Manscaping."

She wipes away a tear and slips away into the shadows she needs to infiltrate.


End file.
